A comics insider told me what is probably an open secret at DC comics this week: a lot of the writers don’t want to work on Superman, because Batman is way easier to write for and often a lot more interesting.

How do you make an invincible, all-powerful alien compelling? It’s a challenge the team behind “Man of Steel” hopes audiences will believe they’ve tackled when the movie comes out at midnight. But a character that’s been around for 75 years has had more than enough adventures — both physical and psychological ones — that have given ol’ Big Blue some depth and layers.

So sure, it’s not terribly gripping when Superman is knocking down a few low-rent thugs. But what if the thugs are other superheroes? Or even capitalist pig governments?

Check out these five classic Superman tales to get you amped up.

1. Death of Superman

Not only is this collection of issues about Superman’s darkest hour one of the best stories in his history, it also had some of the best-selling comic issues of all time. It also kicked off a wave of DC hero death-and-rebirth storylines, most notably the equally awesome Knightfall series that saw Bane unleash all hell on Batman before breaking his back.

The story starts with an unknown monster rampaging across the landscape, leaving a trail of defeated Justice League members in his wake. The creature, later dubbed Doomsday, makes his way to Metropolis where he and Superman have an epic, titan-on-titan, window-shattering slugfest.

The story exposed not only a vulnerable side to Superman, but creators said they wanted to do it because they felt the world had been taking Superman for granted. By the time members of the Justice League (and even Bill and Hillary Clinton) were arriving for the funeral, the real world was mourning the tragedy of his loss just as intensely.

2. Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?

This Alan Moore-penned classic plays off Superman’s one true weakness: not Kryptonite, but his human friends. Superman’s old foes team up to find torture and kill friends of the Man of Steel to find out his secret identity. It all builds up to an all-out-assault on the Fortress of Solitude led by Braniac, Lex Luthor, Bizarro and others, with many casualties along the way. The 1986 story is told mostly in a

flashback from future 1997 Lois Lane, recounting Superman’s last days, and how the final siege weighed on his conscience, leading to the tough decision to drain his powers and walk off into the Arctic forever. Or did he??

3. Red Son

This is one of what’s known as an “Elseworlds” story, a hypothetical storyline that’s not part of canon. “Red Son” considers a simple change of circumstances: What would have happened if Superman had landed in the Soviet Union, instead of Kansas? Instead of embodying “truth, justice and the American way,” Soviet radio calls Superman “the champion of the common worker who fights a never-ending battle for Stalin, socialism and the international expansion of the Warsaw Pact.”

Not quite the same ring to it, huh? Long story short: the Cold War would’ve sucked if we were fighting this guy.

The Mark Millar-penned story earned rave reviews when it came out in 2003, and went on to win an Eisner Award (those are like the Oscars of the comics world).

4. Secret Origin

Superman’s origin has been reset a number of times in the comics (after all, when he first debuted he couldn’t fly and all that Kryptonite stuff was way off), and writer Geoff Johns tells this tale almost entirely from Clark Kent’s perspective.

“Man of Steel” writer David S. Goyer borrowed many points from this story for the movie’s plot: Clark develops his powers almost like some sort of puberty, except with deadly heat vision instead of unsightly body hair.

The story gives some layered depth to Superman’s abilities, showing that he had to develop and control them over time, instead of just plopping down on Earth with a full mastery of his body. And that, like any teenage angst story, is where the intrigue lies.

5. Kingdom Come

This isn’t a solely Superman story, but this 1996 “Elseworlds” tale relies a lot on Big Blue for its moral compass. The dramatic and beautiful Alex Ross illustrations certainly inspired some of the aesthetics of “Man of Steel,” and you can see parallels in the story about Superman trying to find his place in society.

The story is set in the future, when Superman and his generation of Justice League

heroes have been supplanted in the public eye by a new class of more violent, less compassionate heroes. He’s nudged out of hermetic retirement by other heroes and finds himself taking on the awkward role of a world leader.

Some of the antagonists in Kingdom Come were a response to the new comics boom of the mid-90s, where characters and titles were popping up all over the place, some with — according to DC Comics folks, at least — questionable moral character.